LXDE, which stands for Lightweight X11 Desktop Environment, is a desktop environment which is lightweight and fast. It is designed to be user friendly and slim, while keeping the resource usage low. LXDE uses less RAM and less CPU while being a feature rich desktop environment. Unlike other tightly integrated desktops LXDE strives to be modular, so each component can be used independently with few dependencies. This makes porting LXDE to different distributions and platforms easier.

libfm, A glib/gio-based library providing some file management utilities and related-widgets missing in gtk+/glib. This is the core of PCManFM. The library is desktop independent (not LXDE specific) and has clean API. It can be used to develop other applications requiring file management functionality. For example, you can create your own file manager with facilities provided by libfm.

LXPanel, desktop panel. The panel can generate a menu for installed applications automatically from *.desktop files. It can be configured from GUI preference dialog, and there is no need to edit config files. The component provides a "Run" dialog with autocompletion.

LXSession, a session manager, is used to automatically start a set of applications and set up a working desktop environment. Moreover, the session manager is able to remember the applications in use when a user logs out and to restart them the next time the user logs in.

LXSession Edit, an edit manager for session management. The window manager in use in LXDE can be changed, the tool offers the ability to turn on disabled applications.

How to install LXDE

Please use the installation page as your starting point. That page provides general information on how to install LXDE. More detailed information for special distributions can be found in the specific articles of those operating systems.

Development

It is our aim to give access to information to people with less powerful hardware. Many people did not have the opportunity to learn English or another second language. Let us make LXDE available in their language, so everyone can profit from the speed and easy to use features of LXDE! With the LXDE Translations Project we also aim to offer documentation and resources around LXDE in as many local languages as possible. More info..

LXDE Packaging Project

It is our goal to provide packages in as many Linux and other Unix distributions as possible. Please help in the LXDE Packaging Project by providing information and how tos for making packages and getting LXDE packages into different distributions. More info..